The site of Lushanmao and the inheritance and evolution of ritual architecture in early China

Summary

This is an abstract from the "New Thoughts on Current Archaeological Research in Neolithic and Bronze Age China" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The Lushanmao site has uncovered the foundation of a quadrangle courtyard-style palace from the early Longshan period, marking the beginning of courtyard-style palace architecture during the Xia, Shang, and Zhou periods. Notably, the palaces of the Western Zhou period strictly adhered to the symmetrical courtyard layout of Lushanmao, which was subsequently adopted in palace architecture across various historical periods. The latest excavations at the Nanzuo site in Gansu have revealed courtyard-style architecture that directly traces back to the Lushanmao palace buildings, dating as far back as the late Yangshao period. This architectural style is likely the result of a fusion between the courtyard-style buildings of the Jianghan region and the hall-style architecture of the Loess Plateau. Therefore, we preliminarily conclude that during the late Yangshao period, as large-scale cultural interactions occurred across regions, the Loess Plateau underwent a process of cultural amalgamation and social stratification. This led to the formation of the ritual architectural regulations and ritual vessel combinations that characterized early Chinese civilization, which became the mainstream ritual representations during the Longshan and Xia, Shang, and Zhou periods. This development had a decisive impact on the formation of China's ritual-based society over thousands of years.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• New Thoughts on Current Archaeological Research in Neolithic and Bronze Age China

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 52521